Amy Ashton lives alone in a house piled high with memories.
She keeps her memories in her heart, but since the disappearance of her boyfriend, Tim, and best friend, Chantal, years earlier, they’ve spilled over into boxes too. Her house is full to bursting with boxes. Boxes of cookbooks, boxes of vases, boxes of letters. She’s surrounded by piles of newspapers and empty glass bottles, kept company by the beautiful china birds covering every available surface.
Amy’s house is so full, there’s barely room for her. There’s certainly no room for anyone else.
When a new family moves in next door and seems determined to befriend her, Amy’s life begins to change. But before she can deal with the possessions that dominate her existence, she has to deal with her past.
With a narrative about a lonely, isolated woman struggling with a troubled past and mental illness, this book is aimed at readers of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. However, I found it closer to another recent uplit novel, Something to Live For, by Richard Roper, which is about a lonely council worker whose job is to clear the homes of people who have died alone, with no relatives to inherit their belongings.
Initially, I found this hard to read. I have a tendency to absorb other people’s emotions and find it tough to watch or read about certain types of conflict. As we are introduced to Amy and her life, we also get to know her neighbours and understand that they view Amy and her home with distaste, blaming her for attracting vermin and causing all kinds of hazards. She is reluctant to let anyone in – quite literally – ashamed of others seeing the inside of her home. I found that rather upsetting.
While the reasons for Amy’s compulsion to hoard objects that most people would throw away are explained, this isn’t a book that goes into a lot of psychological depth, instead focusing on Amy’s memories and showing the significance of some of the items she has chosen to keep. Her carpets are littered with cigarette lighters, not because she smokes, but because she still yearns for the boyfriend she met as a teenager, when he was in a band. She associates the lighters with time spent at his gigs, watching the audience wave the tiny flames in the air.
It is incredibly sad and, at times, Amy’s loneliness is palpable. The sense of a life half-lived jumps off the page.
After Tim and Chantal vanished, Amy got stuck. She stayed in the same house and the same job, just in case they ever came back and wanted to find her. Although she doesn’t want to believe it, Amy thinks they ran away together and this betrayal – and the fact that everyone around her knows about it – adds to her sense of shame.
We are also introduced to Amy’s workplace and her colleagues, who she keeps at a distance. This means we never really get to know them properly and their characters feel a bit two dimensional. Amy’s job was only ever supposed to be temporary, but it has come to define her and is another example of her inability to face her anxieties or deal with problems. She lets life sweep her along.
But as the book goes on, Amy’s relationships with her neighbours develop and she starts to form connections. This leads to a surprise discovery that also sets her on the path to addressing the troubles in her past.
If you enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant or other books in the uplit genre, this is worth checking out. It’s often a sad, bittersweet read, but there are moments of hope and happiness too and ultimately, the chance at another life for Amy.
Find out more about Everything is Beautiful on Amazon, Goodreads, Little Brown and Hive.
N.B. I received a complimentary copy of the e-book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.